It’s crime of the highest order. Fraternization (sororitization?) with the enemy! Treason! Scandal!

Fall decorating.

Maybe you don’t understand. Leaves are the enemy. Every spring they start growing, all nice and green and innocent. They provide comfortable shade on a hammock in the summer.

But then they turn on you. They change colors and attack. By the trillions they fall and fall and fall. And every year I return to the front lines to stem back the tide of leaves. And I do mean tide. They’re neck deep out there. The infantry goes out and they rake and bag and rake and bag. You pull out the cavalry of lawnmowers and they slaughter leaves by the hundreds. As you clear a path before you they flank you and close off the escape. You return every weekend to wipe them out. But they still come down.

SO WHY THE HELL IS IT THAT WHEN I COME BACK IN, TIRED AND EXHAUSTED, YOU’VE TURNED MY HOUSE INTO AN HOMAGE FOR THE ENEMY?

Ryan: 1 billion Leaves: 0

Leaves everywhere. You stick them up on windows, on the fridge. You buy plastic decorative leaves for artsy arrangements… which is great because we certainly don’t have 17 million of them falling in the backyard as I write this!  You display acorns (You’re starving squirrels for this) and later some pine branches (which don’t lose their needles so it’s unnecessary cruelty to drag them into this) on the coffee table. There’s even leaves on the page banner!

Our troops don’t come home from overseas to pinups of Osama bin Laden around the house! (Okay, so maybe it’s not exactly the same scale. But it’s close.)

Do you not remember what Autumn looks like? It’s right outside the damned window! No really, go look. If it doesn’t look like it right now it’s because I just came in from bagging all the leaves again!

All guilty parties have been court-martialed for crimes against the Abode. Report at 0800 for sentencing.

*Note to new readers, from Jane:  This is just another in a series of “What the Hell” posts from my boyfriend, Ryan.  Read all of his previous entries here.